Protestors call for Alvarez resignation

Protestors call on Alvarez to resign

Stacy St. Clair, Chicago Tribune

Protestors outside the Cook County state's attorney's offices call on State's Attorney Anita Alvarez to resign after her announcement earlier in the week that she would not bring charges against a Chicago police officer who fatally shot an Englewood man in the back as he lay on the ground.

Protestors outside the Cook County state's attorney's offices call on State's Attorney Anita Alvarez to resign after her announcement earlier in the week that she would not bring charges against a Chicago police officer who fatally shot an Englewood man in the back as he lay on the ground. (Stacy St. Clair, Chicago Tribune)

Stacy St. ClairTribune reporter

Protesters called for Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez’s resignation Friday after her announcement earlier in the week that she would not bring charges against a Chicago police officer who fatally shot an Englewood man in the back as he lay on the ground.

“It’s selective prosecution,” said Chicago resident Marissa Brown, who joined more than two dozen protesters at the rally outside the county administrative offices in the Loop. “She’s saying that police officers can open fire on men in Englewood and not worry about getting in trouble.”

Prosecutors announced Tuesday that their two-year investigation into the shooting found that Officer Gildardo Sierra had reason to believe his life was in danger when he shot 16 rounds at Flint Farmer in June 2011. They contend the evidence supports Sierra’s assertion that he mistook a cell phone in Farmer’s hand for a gun and acted in self-defense.

Emmett Farmer said he would like federal investigators or a special prosecutor to review the evidence as protesters carried photographs of his son holding a puppy and chanted for Alvarez to resign.

“The video shows Sierra standing over my son and firing three shots into his back. What else does she need?” Farmer asked of Alvarez.

Flint Farmer’s death marked Sierra’s third shooting — the second fatal one — in six months. It was so disturbing that it prompted police Superintendent Garry McCarthy to tell the Tribune that he considered the shooting a “big problem” and to acknowledge the department had erred by allowing Sierra back on the street given the previous shootings.

The City of Chicago later settled a lawsuit brought by Farmer’s estate for $4.1 million. Sierra, 33, has been assigned to desk duty since the Farmer shooting.

A video of the shooting shows Sierra fired his final three shots into Farmer’s back as he lay on the ground. An autopsy by the Cook County medical examiner's office determined those shots were the fatal wounds.

Prosecutors, however, contend the video offers only a partial glimpse into what happened after Sierra and other officers responded to a 911 call in which Farmer’s girlfriend claimed he had badly beaten both her and her child.

Sierra told investigators that Farmer was pointing an object at him when the officer opened fire – an assertion prosecutors say is backed up by the location of a bullet wound to Farmer’s right hand.

Prosecutors said their investigation showed that all 16 shots were fired within 4.2 seconds as Sierra moved laterally from the street to the sidewalk, the gun ejecting the spent shells as he moved. That allowed prosecutors to chart a probable sequence of events and also to understand that Sierra was reacting rapidly under dark and difficult conditions.

Under state law, police officers can continue firing at a suspect until they believe the threat has ended.